How to Put the Big O Back Into Your LTR

by Nirmala Nataraj Oct 21, 2013

Relationships can be pretty amazing...until they aren't. Most of us have hit that all-too-common block with long-term partners, when the former luster loses its shine and things dwindle to a sputter in the all-important arenas of sex, communication, and overall intimacy.

Maybe you've been in a long-term relationship and you're experiencing something akin to the proverbial seven-year-itch, where even a nod or smile from a handsome stranger can set you on fire in a way that your partner's tried-and-true sexual techniques can't. Or even if things are generally pretty awesome—you still cuddle, make out, have languorous afternoon sex (even if you have to schedule it), and laugh at their jokes—you're still feeling a little beleaguered by the same old, same old.

Bottom line: With most couples, when the honeymoon is over, they find themselves in the kind of stalemate that they'll either ultimately break out of or that'll eventually turn into a cold war—most likely, without them even noticing.

Okay, now that we've got your attention, we want to tell you that you don't have to worry about things staying in this condition forever or receding into a painful and slow LTR bed death. Getting into a long-term relationship isn't the ultimate death sentence when you have conscious relating on your side. And there's nothing hotter in conscious relating than OM.

While many OM practitioners have used the practice as a way to achieve deeper levels of relating with the opposite sex, you're already a step ahead of the game if you're coming into the practice partnered. For one thing, scheduling an OM is a lot easier when you're living with the person you're practicing with, right? And because OM is a practice that deepens your ability to place attention on another person and on pure sensation (especially when it's high and hot), it's something that'll definitely come in handy when you'd rather be throwing plates at your honey's head than sharing frames with them.

Because OM is a practice, making it a high-priority aspect of your life saves you from the pressure of needing to have spontaneous intimacy—or turning a blind eye to it altogether, which some couples in the throes of busy lives often tend to do. In fact, we encourage you to keep up those tidy to-do lists, as long as fostering connection is at the very top.

Don't get us wrong—sex can also be a rigorous practice in much the same way as OM. The problem is, sex is usually the place where we tend to escape through fantasy, go unconscious with hard-and-fast pumping action, or fall apart in order to have someone else pick up the pieces and “save” us. Connection, finding love and acceptance, getting a momentary ego boost—there are all kinds of reasons we choose to have sex, which can make totally clean and straightforward intimacy a lot harder than we might initially believe it to be.

Since OM is purely about placing our attention on sensation such that we can widen our receptivity to it, it's a practice that is inherently cleaner than sex—because we always know what our intention is, and we are encouraged to make strokes and adjustments that are simple, direct, and all about keeping the connection going. In other words, OM makes our sex and our overall relationships better by adding honesty and clarity, by sharpening the sometimes-fuzzy edges that can seep into our love lives over time.

In many long-term relationships, our pipes get backed up with everything ranging from the daily grind to built-up resentment to all the ways we've managed to avoid communication but still maintain the semblance of an un-sinking ship. Unfortunately, this gets expressed in our sex (if we're still having it regularly, that is), until what once felt nourishing and fun gets to be depleting and, frankly, not worth the effort.

Because OM helps us expand our repertoire of sensations rather than numb out, as well as identify our desires and ask for them with clean requests, it's a practice that helps us build our energy back up and feel turn-on oozing out of our pores. This ensures that we aren't just bottomless pits seeking to “get” ours through sex (even if that kind of sex, regardless of all the headboard-banging climaxes, eventually makes us feel worn-out or agitated). OM, in fact, aligns us with our orgasm in a way that routine-ridden sex often doesn't. Think of OM as a rush of golden energy that floods our system and clears out all the gunk of fatigue, obligation, resentment, and boredom. It makes everything new and interesting, such that “not now, honey” becomes an easy “yes, please!”

So the next time you're penciling sex into your calendar (in case it gets left out of the schedule altogether), consider foregoing the obligatory quickie and asking your partner if he wants to OM instead. Trust us, you'll be happy you did.